


First Poems in English

by daystarsearcher



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:45:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daystarsearcher/pseuds/daystarsearcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because when I become obsessed with a fandom, I relate EVERYTHING in my life to it, even Anglo-Saxon literature. And because Captain Picard clearly has dibs on all Moby Dick metaphors. Cheer up, Goren, I got you a new one!</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Poems in English

**Author's Note:**

> Ao3 Note #1: Original author's notes imported with story.
> 
> Disclaimer: They're not mine, I'm not making any money, please don't sue me, yadda yadda yadda.

Adam DeWitt was minor.

A minor literary critic, a minor diplomatic functionary, a graduate and professor of a minor liberal arts college tucked away in the boondocks.

A minor stepping stone on Nicole Wallace's path to the United States.

He had an air about him of quiet and forgettable competence, a slightly amused resignation to the fact that in the great adventure of life, he would always be left behind to look after the house and, if he got a spare moment, read a few fishing magazines.

There really would have been no need to kill him, if it hadn't been for the poem.

_Strange the creature that stole through the water,_

_Grandly she called from her keel to the land,_

_lifted her loud voice. Her laughter was fearful,_

_awful where it was known; her edges sharp._

Nicole Wallace had almost forgotten him before she left him. He had a way of fading into the background even when he was in front of you. And so it was startling, in the middle of a fantasy involving chocolate-dipped strawberries and an intense discussion of Flaubert, to hear his dry little laugh and suddenly remember that he was lying in bed next to her.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing." He shrugged. "Just—this reminded me of you. A little. Not bad, just, you know."

And he handed her the book he'd been flipping through, her brand-new copy of The Exeter Riddles, opened to number thirty-three. The iceberg poem.

The words blurred in front of Nicole's eyes, her heart racing.

"Silly, you know. So what's the real answer?" he asked.

And all she could think was that he shouldn't have found the poem.

Very well, there was nothing about finding the poem itself that was forbidden. But he shouldn't have—he couldn't have, it was impossible—he, he, an unimportant—a worthless, but he had—impossible for him, but he—

He had seen her.

_Slow to enter, she was not slack in battle;_

_hard, and, in deeds of destruction, unyielding:_

_she crushed wooden walls. Wicked the spell_

_that she cunningly unbound about her creation:_

She had wanted—hell, she had burned, still burned now—to throw out the book. But that would have been admitting something.

She did not let herself read the poem more than once a year, and even then she read the book all the way through, so as not to crease the damning page.

It made her think all sorts of uncomfortable things, rustled up all sorts of mental pictures and videos she could really do without, scraped against the barriers she'd put up in her mind…and still she couldn't keep away.

Because she did not want to admit to anything and because, because even in the middle of the ice and the cold and the harshness and deceit there was something—one subtle note pressing to be noticed, just at the end, a fragile budding whisper-thin hint-promise of something that maybe—maybe—

' _My mother—and I am the most daring_

_of all the sex—is also my daughter_

_when grown up in strength. It is granted likewise_

_by the wise among the people, that in every part of the_

_earth,_

_in whatever station, she stands gracefully.'_


End file.
